Mud-wall recycling experiment

Oh whats that? A palm sized hole in the kitchen wall!



We aim to use mostly natural building materials, both to be sustainable and also to save cost. So from last weekend works efforts there remains a pile of mud wall, ready mixed:



I put a few shovel ful into a bucket and added water. it took a little experimenting to get the right relation of water vs mud straw mixture. The key point is that the small shovel should remain standing on its own when stabbed into the mix. At first I had too much water - the thing kept standing but when applied the mixture just ran away. Add more mud.





This is the wall from the outside after completing the inside patch. Before slamming on the mud mix, I placed two bamboo sticks and chicken wire in the middle.



This is how it looks from the inside:



It worked so well that I took on huge gaps above the windows in the south wall. Again placed some chicken wire and then scooped on th mud-mix. Wasps, hornets and spiders - fare well!





Nice work:

Garden Attack 2

I headed out to Ueda early morning by shinkansen, still nursing a slight hangover from a previous evening event. To clear my head and get the old body moving, I started off by addressing the field/garden of the house.

From my mothers previous experience I understood that the two short Kamas were not ideal, as there was a lot of weeds and grass to cut. So on the way over I popped into the nearby DIY shop to buy the extended version.



Progress was ok, although some stones lying hidden under the grass took their toll on the blade. Maybe try to get a motor operated one for the near future. Grass hoppers and several "kamagiri" or praying mantises frantically got out of the way as I hacked away.

It was a good workout for arms and abdomen, and I think its even better than Billy's Bootcamp!

Later that day, a contractor came to take a look at the roof, and see how much needs to be done. He also brought his experienced dad (looked like 100 years old), and they had fun surveying the place all around.

To finish the work I lit a fire and burned the mountains of grass and weeds. Last time I let some of the stuff dry first, but this time it was just too much. It got a bit smoky, but overall the field is in much better shape now.